Haystacks: Autumn

On an autumn plain three great haystacks rise against a gray-blue sky; a flock of sheep grazes nearby and a shepherd rests against a stack. The soft light and quiet tones convey the calm, and a hint of melancholy, that follow the harvest. Jean-François Millet was a leading painter of the Barbizon school, famous for The Gleaners and The Angelus. Devoted throughout his life to rural subjects, he lent ordinary labor dignity and poetry. This canvas is one of a series of the Four Seasons commissioned late in Millet’s life and painted shortly before his death. Unlike his earlier figure-centered works, its protagonists are the land and the season, with people and animals absorbed into a still, timeless landscape.